Barclays was “arrogant and aggressive” over the past decade as it sought to avoid tax, evade regulation and protect huge pay packets for the 70 most senior figures, a damning report into the bank’s business practices said yesterday.

An investigation commissioned by Barclays in the wake of the Libor scandal unearthed a string of hidden breaches and paints an organisation fighting a war of attrition against regulators and its own directors.

Anthony Salz, executive vice-president of Rothschild and a former senior partner of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, who was brought in to conduct the investigation, revealed in the 236-page report how